Kevin Sampsell - A Common Pornography - A Memoir

Our first “album” of punk rock songs was recorded on a cassette player in his bedroom and bathroom. Just Terry and me. We decided to call ourselves Neon Vomit. He was good at creating some heavy riffs based on my smallest suggestions (usually just me saying, Can you do something like this—and then imitating a guitar part with my clenched mouth), and then I would yell the lyrics in my best Rollins imitation. There were no drums, but sometimes we would bang on the toilet seat for percussion. Among the first songs we recorded was a sarcastic putdown of Doug, one of the more snooty guys in our little circle of community college New Wavers. It was called “Gee, Doug, You’re So Funny” (chorus: “Gee, Doug, you’re so funny / You make me want to vomit!”). Terry and I made a few tapes and passed them around the campus of Columbia Basin College and it was soon the center of a rivalry as heated as West Coast versus East Coast hip-hop.

In a classic double-cross moment, Doug somehow talked Terry into playing guitar for him on a song that he wrote called “Kevin, You’re Such a Fag.” I admit that it was a pretty catchy song, especially with the cool drum machine they must have borrowed from someone.

Even though it was fun to record the Neon Vomit songs, I still wanted to sing (not just yell) in a band that would actually play shows. My friend Len played keyboards and wanted to form a more traditional New Wave band—with expensive haircuts, high-fashion clothes, poetic lyrics, and a sexy name.

I was writing more and more songs as Len tried to find a guitarist and a drummer. My lyrics started to sound a little less like Henry Rollins and more like a Prince protégé. It was an embarrassing mix of those two influences, with some Cure and Scritti Politti blended in. A classic case of some journals I should have burned a long time ago. Thankfully, nothing ever came of it.

I met Daphneat the Palace. She lived in Hermiston, so instead of driving back that night, she and a friend stayed at a cheap roadside motel. I went to the hotel too, and Daphne and I had sex on the floor while her friend slept in the bed. I liked her immediately because she also liked Prince and she was easy, like me. Easy and eager.

We saw each other off and on for a few months, whenever she came to town for the weekend dances or to shop at the mall. An alternating gaggle of other kids from Hermiston also would come up with her. They always stood out a little because their sense of style was actually more small-town than the Tri-Cities. They tried a little harder to seem different. But under their Goth makeup and torn punk jackets, they were hicks like us.

Daphne and I would have sex anywhere, anytime. She wanted to do it in a cemetery once, so we drove to one and did it in the back of her station wagon.

She had a problem with acne, as did I, and sometimes when we made out, our mouths would inadvertently slurp up all the Neutrogena acne wash and cover-up cream. I thought that her skin problems were probably due to stress. I’m sure it was a burden to always be so horny and to have a dad who was a minister.

One of the last times we had sex was in the middle of my high school football field. We brought a sleeping bag out to the fifty-yard line and squeezed inside. We called it the Human Burrito.

David was oneof the other Hermiston kids. He was a stocky grocery store worker, always trying to talk me into starting a New Wave band with him.

Almost every weekend, David and Daphne and whoever else was around would sleep on Marco Torrez’s floor. Marco was this guy all my other friends made fun of. He was a tall, black-clad Mexican who wore lipstick and women’s hats.

One night, David and Daphne met me at Shari’s, one of those twenty-four-hour restaurants that we often found ourselves in since we were too young to go to bars. David kept going on about how he was learning guitar and buying a drum machine. “We could be like the Jesus and Mary Chain,” he said. “There’re only two guys in that band.” David seemed to think I was going to be the singer in his band. “We have to think of a good name and we have to take press photos,” he said as he sipped from the oversize milkshake in front of him. I looked at Daphne to try and gauge her position on the matter.

“You should take naked photos,” she said. “That would get some attention and create controversy. I could use my uncle’s camera. He lives up here.”

“That’s awesome,” said David.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of posing nude for photos but I liked taking my clothes off in front of Daphne.

The following Friday, we met at Marco’s before the dance. I’d been to his place only once before. It was a small one-bedroom apartment with big posters of the Cure and Bauhaus looming over the front room. There were black curtains and black candles and a black fake leather couch. David sat in a director’s chair, writing band name ideas in a notebook. He told me Daphne was on her way and that her uncle was coming over to help her set up the camera. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Her uncle is cool. I met him once. I think he used to be a model.”

There was a little kitchen in the apartment and I went in there to say hi to Marco. I was hoping nobody else would be there to watch this. Marco was wearing a satin bathrobe and I asked him if he was going out later. He shrugged and took a pizza out of the oven. “I guess we’ll see what everyone feels like doing,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“We’re all going to do it,” he said. “It’s going to be cool.”

One of Marco’s Goth friends came out of the bathroom, a girl named Alexis. I didn’t know her very well. She was sort of new in town and over twenty-one. She bought all the alcohol. She was tall and skinny and wore clothes that barely stayed on. She made up her face to look like a china doll. In fact, her whole body looked like it was powdered white. She could glow in the dark. She was probably the first person I knew who wore such sexy clothes. Garter belts. Lace. She probably had to go to Seattle to buy such things. I said hi to her and wondered if she was going to get naked.

Daphne came in with her uncle then, carrying a tripod and an awkward camera. Her uncle was a chubby forty-year-old with a fringed jacket and feathered hair. “Hi everyone,” he said, a little too jovially. “This is going to be fun.” He helped Daphne set up the tripod in front of the couch. “So, should we do the band photos first or just start with everyone?” asked the uncle. No one said anything.

Daphne turned and snapped a photo of my blank expression. “We have lots of film,” she said. “Let’s just do some candid shots first. See what develops. Get it? See what develops?” She turned and took a photo of her uncle.

“Oh, God,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t let your dad see me in these photos. He’d damn me to hell—again!” Everyone laughed a little about that. We all started drinking then. I put more vodka in my Big Gulp cup, mixing it with the last of my Coke. I liked the burn in my throat. The sensation of almost throwing up with each swallow. Five or six swallows later, I was over that hump. I became loose and daring.

“Shirts off,” yelled Marco. He had Depeche Mode on and I was watching Alexis dancing out of the corner of my eye. Five shirts were thrown into the corner.

We looked at the uncle with his striped polo shirt still on. “I’m only here to document,” he said. Then he asked Daphne if there was supposed to be someone else there. “I thought you knew an Asian boy,” he said. He seemed a little disappointed when Daphne told him that her Asian friend wasn’t coming.